Conflicting reports fuel fracking debate tied to Wyoming town

SALMON, Idaho, Sept 28 Government testing of a
drinking water aquifer near a tiny Wyoming town has shown
concentrations of gases like ethane and propane and diesel
compounds, but a natural gas company said it did not cause the
contamination.

A report by the U.S. Geological Survey showed
petroleum-based pollutants in samples from a monitoring well in
the aquifer adjacent to Pavillion, Wyoming, which is at the
center of a national debate over hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking.

A draft study released in December by the Environmental
Protection Agency linked fluids used in fracking, a drilling
method that has unlocked vast shale gas deposits across the
nation, to pollution in the underground formation that supplies
drinking water to residents near Encana Corp's gas
production wells east of Pavillion.

The findings contradicted claims by gas drillers that fluids
from fracking, which injects water, sand and chemicals
underground to boost extraction of fuel, have never contaminated
drinking water.

Criticism by the oil and gas industry and Wyoming officials
of the methods the EPA employed to collect water quality data
and regulators' interpretation of the findings prompted recent
retesting under a monitoring plan designed by the state, the
USGS and the EPA.

Compared to the 2011 EPA study, the USGS results from
testing of one of two monitoring wells in the aquifer indicated
higher levels of gases like methane, lower levels of
diesel-range organics and the absence of such solvents as
toluene, an Encana analysis showed.

The EPA is expected in coming days to release its testing of
water from two groundwater monitoring wells, several domestic
wells and a public well. The data sets are to be submitted for
peer review.

The EPA said the groundwater monitoring data in its 2011
report and USGS findings were "generally consistent."

But Encana spokesman Doug Hock said the findings are not
equal and singled out USGS for providing "credible data" in
research whose "implications are not just for Encana but for the
whole industry."

Hock and Simon Lomax, research director of an arm of the
Independent Petroleum Association of America, underscored a
decision by USGS to discount samples from the second of two
monitoring wells because of concerns that low water quantity and
other factors might skew results.

"The USGS effectively disqualified one of the EPA's two
monitoring wells," Lomax said in a statement.

He pointed to a March 1 letter by Donald Simpson, director
of the Bureau of Land Management office in Wyoming, that
recommended the installation of additional monitoring wells for
a "larger and much more robust study effort and investment prior
to drawing any conclusions, particularly in the case about the
role of hydraulic fracturing use in development of the oil and
gas resource."

Encana's Hock said the Canadian company denies the pollution
in Pavillion is related to its operations.

But Rob Jackson, professor of environmental sciences at Duke
University, said his review of USGS data shows it is consistent
with EPA's initial results, "which suggested the contamination
at the site from fracking is a real possibility."

Jackson, co-author of a peer-reviewed paper that showed
fracking in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania did not pollute
adjacent drinking water wells with brine, said the report by the
USGS should quiet criticism of the EPA.

"You can't say that EPA botched the job if USGS goes on and
gets similar numbers," he said.

Jackson said it was difficult to account for the presence of
hydrocarbons like ethane and propane without a fossil fuel
source.

The financial stakes are high in the battle over tainted
water in a state where the oil and gas industry last year paid
$2.4 billion in taxes and royalties, said John Robitaille, vice
president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming.

But for retired rancher Jeff Locker - one of two dozen
residents near Pavillion advised by federal health officials not
to drink from domestic wells impaired by pollutants like methane
- the costs have all been personal.

"I'm not a scientist. All this fighting over testing has
been a frustration to me. All I know is our quality of life has
been taken away," he said.

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